From one extreme to another. We go from a road trip to the Inner Hebrides to a sporty, winter warmer in Lanzarote! We went to an old Roscoe family favourite; Club La Santa on the far side of the Island. The La Santa bubble is something that is very easy to get sucked into. Once you’re there, it’s quite difficult to leave! In all honesty, you don’t really need to! I guess we found that it was so easy for us with Frank and Helen’s parents there. Club La Santa is very familiar once you arrive and get to know your bearings, it’s very easy to navigate and this was clear for Frank too. Within a few days he was ruling the roost, dictating his direction to get us back to the apartment, the track, the play centre or the pool. It’s minimal design means you feel like you’re walking through a giant sculpture at times. But it’s hard not to be drawn in by the busy schedules of activities that are on offer, after all this is a holiday!

Dave and I really enjoyed having time to do various forms of exercise that we wouldn’t usually have time to do. This included tennis, paddle boarding, squash, ariel yoga, a duathlon and a triathlon. Add to this regular running and swimming and we were feeling pretty healthy by the end of 10 days. We had that glowing feeling that neither of us have felt for some time. The grandparents took turns to look after Frank so that we could go off and do things and we took Frank swimming every day as well as got him a balance bike to get used to whilst we were there. They also have a play group for children, although one of us had to be with Frank because he is under 3, for most parents this means that they can leave their children there and go off and do their activities. The latest facilities that have been built are amazing at Club La Santa; two Olympic sized swimming pools and a bike centre to get any cyclist salivating! We were spoilt for choice!

So while Club la Santa is expensive, once you are there all of your activities, lessons, bike hire, equipment hire and coaching is included. The only thing you have to pay for is food really! Although we did decided to do an excursion and went surfing for the day in Famara with La Santa Surf. This cost around 45 euros each for about 5 hours worth of instruction and it was well worth it. We felt that the instruction was very clear and we basically managed to surf almost every time we got onto the board! So all in all we loved it! This happened the day after we got engaged so it was an excellent way to celebrate together.

With an abundance of warm weather, and so much to do it’s difficult to get bored at La Santa. Evening entertainment is there if you want to dip into it and the kids just love it! The big kids do too! We enjoyed Halloween without all of the commercial stuff that comes with it and Frank loved watching his first magician’s show. Coming home as a fiancé definitely made it for us all! We loved it! An interesting fact told to us whilst we were there; 4 out of 5 people who visit Club La Santa for the 1st time will return. Looks like we’ve got our winter sun holiday sorted for 2016!

(All images copyright to Roscoe Rutter Ltd, shot using Nikon D700 with 35mm f1.8 and 50mm f1.4)

It always takes us some time nowadays to get on with personal projects in terms of editing and collating. Part of the reason for this is ‘life’! We love embarking on personal projects as much as we can, but perhaps we don’t always have the time to reflect like we used to. Our son, Frank is nearly 2 years old! The time is flying by, but we are living each moment from one day to the next as he grows into a little boy. Part of the joy of being work-at-home parents is that we do get to see those precious moments more often than not, and the plus side is we can take off when we like on various adventures, big or small!

So our first adventure we are sharing with you today is our family holiday in the Inner Hebrides towards the back end of the summer. We loaded Helen’s Dad’s 4×4 with everything but the kitchen sink and took off on a long trip up to Scotland. We say long, because the journey up to Glen Coe alone took us nearly 6 hours with a break in Moffat. Bear in mind that a toddler and a dog to entertain and stretch, these journeys take a lot longer than they used to. We only stayed for one night in Glen Coe, using it as a stop over for Skye rather than staying to explore the beautiful landscape. So onwards from Glen Coe we drove to Mallaig and took the passenger ferry to Armadale on Skye. We chose this route because it meant less time in the car and more time outside for Frank and Rudy. Our first taste of Skye was breathtaking. We enjoyed fantastic weather and toured around the south-west cost because we’d read some very lovely things about it. So our first afternoon on Skye was spent playing in the sea in a very quiet bay called Tarskavaig. We suddenly felt like we were on holiday after the very long journey getting there. Although we still had to drive to the north of the Island, this was a beautiful place for us to stop for a while and soak it all in.

We’d booked into a family friends cottage very close to Stein in Waternish for 5 nights. The croft cottage is a rustic little place, full of charm and family quirks such as games, books and ornaments. Frank and Rudy felt at home straight away! The views from which led out across the bay and we didn’t get board of sitting in the conservatory looking out at the sunsets that kept coming. The main thing that was a bit difficult for us on this holiday was the distance we had to travel to go and do things. It was a case of everytime we went out, back into the car and dealing with a stroppy Frank (and dog) who didn’t want to have to endure another car journey be it little or long.

However what we did experience was really appropriate to us as a family. We spent time at Dunvegan Castle and explored its interior and grounds. We enjoyed picnics in quiet bays, a walk to Neist Point, local markets and an afternoon in Portree. We didn’t try to do too much, we just wanted to enjoy the fine weather whilst we had it, and when the weather closed in, we hibernated! Reading books, snoozing and playing games at the cottage. This place is cut off from the world, no internet or phone reception meant we had time to switch off from work and enjoy quality time together.

When we left Skye we took another road trip to the Isle of Mull where we had booked into Adarchy House Hotel for 3 nights. Helen had previously been to Mull on a family holiday years ago and was pretty keen to go back. Staying on the south of the island meant we kept everything we did pretty local to where we were staying. We enjoyed long walks on the nearby beach, a trip to Iona, and a day on Fidden Bay, which plays host to some of the clearest waters in the UK. It’s even been described as one of the best wild water swimming places in Europe! It didn’t disappoint! Although we had some rain and wind, generally the weather stayed pretty fine for us whilst we were on Mull.

We really enjoyed an impromptu visit to Ardanalish Isle of Mull Weavers, where we had a little tour of the weaving factory wearing ear defenders along the way. It was really educational watching the weaver at work, operating the machinery and enjoying a cup of tea in the process. There was someone else doing some documentary photography while were there with a Leica m9! Definitely the right place for this camera.

We hadn’t really thought out the guest house situation very well with Frank and Rudy in tow. Our room was pretty small and Rudy had to bunk in with us! This meant a very wet, stinking dog coming in at the end of a day playing in the sea! Still he was amazing and we survived! It was nice to let someone else make breakfast for us for a few days. They are extremely hospitable at Adarchy House, but we didn’t think they were that well set up for families…so if we were to return to Mull, we’d definitely go down the self-catering cottage route. It just works so much better!

Our journey home took even longer because we traveled in one go from the south of Mull to the Lake District including the ferry journey over to Oban. We all survived, but breaking up the journey whenever possible is highly advised! Frank was a trooper in all honesty and we had enough entertainment to keep him going when we needed to! The main thing to think about on this sort of trip is to be flexible! Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to do as much as you can in terms of travel and the things you decide to do! It makes everything so much more fun for everybody if you can chop and change plans depending on the situation. So here we go…

(All images copyright to Roscoe Rutter Ltd shot with Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, Zeiss 18mm f4)

These events took place earlier in the summer, at the start of July to be precise when Yorkshire and Derbyshire hosted the first stages of the Tour De France. It’s really taken us this long to get these images onto the blog but we didn’t want to miss it as an event on here. We also celebrated a certain Nanni’s birthday and so the two went hand in hand.

It was a pretty exciting event to go and support as we found our spot on a grassy bank after the Holme Moss ascent. We didn’t take the bikes instead opting for Frank and his push chair so we could all go and witness this one off sporting spectacular. The shuttle buses from Hadfield train station ran smoothly and the entire thing was much easier to access than we had anticipated, especially with a 7 month old baby to bring along.

As the build up escalated we waited in anticipation of the incoming cyclists who were preceded with an entourage of sponsor-themed caravans some of which were really funny, others less imaginative but all of which managed to add to the ever-energetic atmosphere of supporters.

They did come through in a flash but it was a really awesome sight and we enjoyed our sunny, windy day up on the banks along with the thousands of other people who were there sharing this amazing event. On the way back to the shuttle buses we were greeted with even more thousands of cyclists who had traveled far and wide on their bikes to be a part of it all.

The next day we had a bit of a more leisurely visit to Chatsworth House where we celebrated Barbara’s birthday with a tour around the house itself, a spot of afternoon tea in the Cavendish Restaurant and a lovely walk around the gardens. We are seriously considering National Trust membership for next years outings having already visited 3 grounds close by to us, it only makes sense. They are family friendly places to visit, which right now is very appealing.

Chatsworth is stunning, the house itself is very regal and home to one of Europe’s most significant art collections. From old Masters through to contemporary sculpture we were delighted by the contrast of old and new within rooms that have been fantastically maintained and restored to the rich history of the Devonshire family. Frank seemed to enjoy it all too, perhaps even more so the cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches which were served as part of our afternoon tea.

At the time of our visit there was a major display of contemporary sculpture in the gardens by Micheal Craig-Martin, a giant wheelbarrow, fork and stiletto shoe to name a few. It’s always refreshing to have such a juxtaposition of nature, regality and the contemporary sublime coming together.

We’d really recommend Chatsworth as a family-friendly day out, its the most beautiful of all of our national trust visits so far this year. Although the ticket into the house is expensive it’s worth doing at least once in your lifetime if you get the chance to visit. The gardens are always lovely and the afternoon tea a nice way to complete Barbara’s birthday. We paid £21.50 per head for the Traditional Afternoon Tea including a glass of home-brewed Rose wine, which was delicious. I think we’ll come again!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0)

So here we are 4 months since the time our little man Frank joined us to make 3 in the Rutcoe camp. It seems as if he’s been with us forever and is still yet only 4 months old. We love being parents and the joy that he gives us every minute of our lives. A babies development is something to be in awe of, just today we put a glass up to his mouth, he held it around the edge and went to drink from it, like we do! There was nothing in the glass to drink, but he knew this was what he should do. He’s starting to let us know what he wants through more hand gestures, cries and laughs and we are greeted by more and more giggles each day.

In our backyard we have a wonderful array of English Bluebells growing wild, they look stunning at this time of year and so a week ago we decided on an impromptu family photo shoot with our old best friend the Leica M9. Getting stuck into parenting has meant less time with the Leica, more time with Frank…this is to be expected surely? I mean the Nikon D600 gets daily use but we tend to save the Leica for those one off moments, when the light is lovely and golden and we just know that something special will be captured. Just like when we were exploring the world, we often felt that if it was an image worth keeping it should be shot on the Leica, we didn’t really think we’d have around 30,000 or so images but this is how it is when you explore so many amazing places.

And so it was on this late spring evening that we felt we would create some imagery that would be something we will go onto cherish for a long time to come. Of course it helps when it’s all there ready for us, a wonderful backdrop and willing participants – us! Frank is getting more and more accustomed to the camera now so he makes it easy for us.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0)

Something that we have decided to keep quite private this year but can no longer hold back is the fact that we have been expecting our first child together. For the past 9 months we have been documenting Helen’s body as it changes and grows. We didn’t start the project until she was about 3 months pregnant by which time there was a little bloat evident, but in comparison to the latter stages looks completely normal!

It’s funny because in those early stages we noticed there was a hard bump there, but 6 months on it’s like a watermelon just sat waiting to drop.The first 4 images were taken when we were living with Helen’s parents in Widnes, we were there for a few months before moving into our new home where the remaining images were taken. All except one which was taken when we were in the Lake District for Dave’s 30th Birthday. Not only is it a visual pregnancy journal it also represents a time of big changes in our lives; moving from Leicester to the North-West, Dave starting a new job, the news of a little one joining us before finally buying our first home together on the edge of the Peak District.

We took the same position for each photograph every Sunday morning from this moment on and decided to wait to share this on our blog until our new arrival came into our lives. When writing this Helen was 39 weeks pregnant (see pic below) and looking likely to go into labour any time soon.

This is a very personal project but we felt that it deserved a space in our very personal blog which has always documented the things we’ve done away from our work-related lives. As you can guess the next few installments of the blog are likely to be baby-fueled.

Helen is looking forward to taking some time out of her professional practice, will she become all homely now? She has been attempting curtain making and other sewing machine projects so who knows. Meanwhile Dave is looking forward to paternity leave, 2 weeks isn’t long enough but its going to be a very special time for us.

Frank Leo Rutter was born on Christmas Day morning at 9.41am weighing 6lbs8oz. More to follow.

We keep saying this everytime we write but we wish we could be posting more frequently on our beloved Notworkrelated blog. The truth is we’ve both been so busy in our workrelated lives! This shouldn’t be an excuse! The reason we started this blog was for us to have a platform through which we could discuss and showcase what we get up to away from work. I guess with all the traveling out of our system (well for the time being at least) we have had to crack on and get back into our lives as photographer and designer.

So for a little update here’s what we’ve been up to…

Helen photographed Andre Bonomi, new Aston Martin shareholder for an Italian editorial feature at head office in June.

Helen has already visited Dubai, Spain, France and Germany this year with top client Aston Martin. She’s been photographing lifestyle and documentary imagery on launches, at motorsport events and various VIP visits to head office. It’s been a busy year for Aston with it being their Centenary year and so there has been lots to photograph! Not to mention their big celebrations in London this coming weekend. It’s free to the public on Sunday to witness Aston Martin’s biggest line up of iconic Aston Martin cars in history. Lets hope the sun stays good for us!  You can find out more here.

Bruno Senna leads the GT Pro class in car no.99 at this years Le Mans 24 hour race. Needless to say the gridwalk was a fantastic experience!

Unfortunately David doesn’t get to play quite so much with the Aston’s but he does often find himself joining Helen as a photographer too which is nice as this means we get to work with each other! And we have just both returned from the Goodwood Festival of Speed where we were shooting for Tag Heuer as a joint venture so he does get some of the perks!

David in the meantime has started a job! Nooooo! We cried! But there are a few responsibilities on our shoulders including a new house which we should be moving into soon. We’re moving to a lovely village on the cusp of the Peak District and within reach of the glorious city of Mancheser which is going to be our new back yard! Well actually the Peak District is more our back yard but it’s good to have Manchester only a 20 minute train journey away.

He is now working at Havas Lynx, a global agency leading the way when it comes to marketing and design. He’s in the design team putting ideas into reality. It’s a great platform career wise, plus it means we get to meet more people from Manchester!

So in between relocating and finding ourselves new contacts for work and play we took a little trip to Wales recently and opted for the less popular but perhaps more spectacular hike to the top of the Glyders in Snowdonia. We were greeted by glorious weather right before this ongoing heat wave began luckily for us as it rains often in Llanberis. We took the £1 bus up to Pen-Y-Pass where the path begins opposite the Pass car park alongside the hostel. We rarely passed anyone heading up this side of the mountain a refreshing change to tackling the masses of hikers who take on Snowdon every day.

Our ascent took about 2.5 hour or so with a few breaks to take in the views and to enjoy Mrs Roscoe’s homemade fruit cake! Its easy to loose the path because it isn’t well trodden however there are pink markers on the rocks every so often so if you do miss it navigating back onto it is easy enough. Approaching Glyder Fawr at 999m is fun, it’s a little like scrambling over giant rocks in Planet of the Apes. The landscape is amazing up here, the rock formations huge making us feel like midgets! We met more hikers as we ventured across to Glyder Fach (994m) and found the cantilever stone perched on top of more rocks. Some fun to be had there!

We looked out across to Tryffan and Devil’s Kitchen, perhaps routes that are taken more frequently although only in good conditions. As it was still and sunny this was the perfect day to hike around these peaks. We’re always reminded of the dangers when we see rescue helicopters flying around!

We took the path down to the Pen-Y-Gwryd Hotel where we enjoyed drinks in their historic and Everest themed bar. The only downside was the hour long wait for the bus back to Llanberis, but at £1 each its a bargain really!! Although this isn’t the Himalayas there is so much exploring to be done in this part of Wales either by foot or bike. We’ve enjoyed many hikes directly from Helen’s parents cottage in Llanberis and also bike rides around the Snowdon routes. It’s a part of the country that should be on everyone’s visit-list at some stage in their lives and especially for those who love the outdoors.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8 processed in Lightroom 3)

We’ve been waiting to share this project for quite some time but needed to have all of its components complete before we felt happy with sharing it with you.

During the winter months Helen arranged to shoot two of our top UK athletes Kate Dennison and Martyn Rooney, both of whom have competed in two Olympic Games including Beijing and the amazing London 2012. Martyn has been our top 400m runner for quite a few years whilst Kate was  our number 1 pole vaulter. They are a couple outside of sport too which is why we thought this may prove to be a fun and insightful project to work with them on, and they agreed.

The shoot took place at Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium, where for most of the winter months Martyn was training hard in anticipation of the 2013 season still to come. Kate meanwhile has retired from competitive sport and is focusing on other aspects of her life within the work-related arena.

The aim of this shoot was for us to produce a sports-documentary focused project that features the athletes, their training, their personality, their relationship and their environment. As a secondary idea to the shoot we decided to design a small, promotional limited-edition booklet and poster which will be used for our own marketing purposes both from a photography and design point of view.

Helen’s interest in Sports Marketing imagery stems from her background in Athletics, she too has competed at a high level for Great Britain as a 200m runner, training at Loughborough University for many years and as a result has forged close friendships and relationships with some of the UK’s top athletes. Helen trained alongside Kate when they were both at Loughborough together.

When Helen first started thinking about freelance photography she was commissioned by Loughborough University to photograph many of the athletics stars who went onto compete in the Athens Olympics that year. Since then this side of Helen’s portfolio has grown but was put on hold when Notworkrelated formed and along with David they ventured around the world for 15 months. The impact Notworkrelated is having on Helen’s professional practice is obvious when most of her commissions come in the style of lifestyle and documentary photography.

‘I tend to shoot more lifestyle and documentary work with people than ever before and I really think this is down to the travel and documentary side of my portfolio. It has also made me think differently about the way I photograph people. I am interested in sharing something personal about someone and what I love about photographing athletes is I know what they are going through. I think there is so much behind the scenes that is so exciting to document it’s just unmissable stuff for me.’

I wanted to shoot a sports related project without any client pressure or demand and with David joining me as another photographer on the shoot I felt we’d be able to get something gritty out of it, a raw and natural shoot that portrays something about Kate and Martyn, their relationship to sport, to one another and to their environment. We had free reign of the venue and amazing light all day so it worked in our favour to play and create what we wanted to. The empty stadium just adds a further atmosphere to the overall feel of the shoot, usually packed with spectators when they are in competition mode, but silence ensues when the training happens, there is more time to think, more time to analyse and enough space to distance yourself in those quiet moments between step-runs.

It was only when we were editing the shoot that we felt we really had something we wanted to share with people, and between us we brought together a limited edition booklet and poster designed by David.

‘The booklet and poster uses geometric design, utilising a repeated grid structure for the photography and typography layout. This adds form and hierarchy to the overall design. Gill Sans, a sans-serif  font, created in the late 1920′s was used for its clear no-nonsense approach and modernist values.  The front and rear of the booklet uses simple geometric shapes to represent speed, rotation, movement and the competitive need to participate and win. Iconography illustrations represent each sport with simple shapes, lines of movement and colour.’

We wanted to produce something a little different from your average marketing piece by injecting our personality into it, Kate and Martyn have their profile’s as athletes and we have ours too. Because Helen has got personal records as a former athlete it was easy to document her events and add this to her profile, for David though we wanted to add something different so his event is ‘Getting up each day’ and he’s working on his P.B!

We’re really proud of this body of work and as a project that shows what we can both do when we work together combining our photography and design skills, and we do this whether it’s work-related or not.

David has since been commissioned by Martyn to design his new website and Helen recently photographed the UK’s number 1 male Squash player for an editorial feature.

As part of our own promotion we gave away 5 limited edition booklets and posters through a recent blog post with our friends The Printspace.

After a two week spell as lifestyle and documentary photographer for Aston Martin, I was joined by David for a week long holiday in the region of Catalonia where we based ourselves in the beautiful medieval village of Begur.

Begur is a stunning hilside village, it’s steep on the way in and steep on the way out and is surrounded by luscious landscape, mountains and the sea. Long gone were the Aston Martin Rapide’s and soon we were settled into the lazy days of the Catalonian way of life! Although this wouldn’t be a Notworkrealted post without some kind of activities going on.

Based on the wonderful world of Trip Advisor we found our lovely guesthouse; The Aiguaclara, which is located in the heart of Begur. Thanks to all the raving reviews we had no question as to whether this would be the right place for us to base ourselves during our stay. Straight away there was a warm welcome by the hosts Clara and Joan who rennovated this colonial-style built in 1866, and they’re personality is all over the place with vintage decor, quirky objects and antiques scattered throughout. It’s a considered design across 4 stories, with each room unique from the other.

Happy with our choice of accommodation we then went on to explore the village, which in 1 evening is easy enough to do. We ate in the restaurant at the hotel “Fet Amb Love” which basically sums this place up and then walked up to the Castle. Which at night with a full moon is very rewarding.

On our first day as tourists we ventured out on a coastal walk thanks to a walking trails map provided by the hotel. From Begur we took the downhill route to Sa Tuna, greeted by many locals enjoying the escape of the city, we explored a path off to the right and up to a viewing point at Mirador de St Josep, before turning back down to the bay and taking the coastal path along to Sas Vaques and before long Aguafreda. At this point it was a little unlcear as to where the path was leading us but we cut inland on the road and then found the path again a little higher up en-route to Sa Reira. Eventually the signs re-appeared and so it wasn’t difficult to navigate. We continued the walk to Sa Riera, at which point we stopped for lunch in a local Tavern before enjoying a quiet moment on the beach. From Sa Riera we took a pleasant forest trial leading back up to Begur by which point it was 4pm and we’d hiked about 11km. It was a lovely walk lots of steep ups and downs but on a clear day some beautiful bays to take in.

For days 2 and 3 of our time in the area we hired a car through the hotel from a local car-hire company based in Palafrugell. It cost us 101 Euros for 2 days including insurance and 2 drivers. Fuel is pretty cheap in Spain so we only spent 40 Euros in 2 days.

We drove up to Figueres once we had received our little Chevrolet Matiz which from Begur took about an hour. Once in Figueres we managed to find free parking a little away from the Dali museum and we joined the ever-growing queue to get into the museum, it took a further hour before we were paid the 12 Euro entrance fee and were inside!

We hadn’t really anticipated the Easter vacationers coming into the area from Barcelona. The Dali Theatre Museum cost 12 Euros each to get in but this is like no other museum either of us have visited before! Described as being the largest surrealist object in the world, the theatre is home to ideas, dreams, sketches, objects and just about everything Dali ever imagined brought into real life. It’s really interesting, fun and engaging. A little bit like stepping into a circus allowing for the imagination to gather and grow. The only problem for us were the hundreds of other visitors muscling their way in and out of each space, oh and not to mention those using flash on their cameras to document it all! Why?!
We were on a Dali-fueled mission and drove out to Cadaques and Portlligat, which is a lovely drive over the hills and down to the coast. Portlligat is where Dali lived and his home is now a museum, the only problem being that we didn’t have tickets to get in and it was fully booked until Easter Monday. So we wandered around the quiet bay, enjoyed some patatas bravas and then drove to Cadaques. This place is definitely worth a visit on a sunny day. Again it was packed full or visitors but it really is a stunning coastal town. Much bigger than Begur, oozing character and every corner holding a link to Dali.

We found a small gallery ran by local legend and photographer Joan Vehi who houses hundreds of photographs taken during his lifetime. Draws listing from the 1960′s through to modern day and famous reportage shots of Dali in the area. Really worth a peek if you are ever there. We finished our evening with a walk up to the castle and Paella at one of the local restaurants in the village.

On our second day with the Matiz we ventured further afield, I wanted to share a few places with Dave that I had taken in on launch with the Rapides. Although the Matiz isn’t quite up to scratch with an Aston Martin we managed to get to Besalu where lots of Easter celebrations were taking place. This is a really stunning medieval village again built up around churches and with a large characterful square in the centre. It’s a great place to explore, lots of cobbled walk-ways, cafe’s and bars as well as views across the river towards the bridge built in 1066 or there about.

We followed our sightseeing tour out towards Ripoll and after another hour of driving we landed in Fibes De Freser where lunch was booked up in Ventola at Anna’s mountain restaurant. You can’t get a better authentic Catalonian mountain hut than this for food and service. They took Dave and I under their wing and were fantastic hosts for the afternoon, only reassuring further their gratitude at being the Aston Martin lunch stop of choice for the Rapide launch. This time with no Aston’s in sight the restaurant was packed to the rim of tourists, locals, hikers and skiers all following their noses to this legendary restaurant. Owned by Anna, a former Olympic skier, and ran by her loyal staff they run up and down the stairs with hot plates of food, sweat on their brow there is never a rest at this place! We enjoyed a great lunch and vow to go back their one day. With 3 meals in one we didn’t need to eat out that night! So it was a DVD back in our Aigua Clara home and a glass of Esmeralda white wine.

On our final day in Begur it rained! It was very misty and we didn’t have a car, so we simply spent our day in and around the hotel, walked a little, read, edited some photographs and enjoyed food with friends later on. We really loved Begur as a place to base ourselves whilst exploring the depths of the Catalonian region and the comforts of the Aigua Clara Hotel meant we had a home from home to relax at in between the sight seeing.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, Nikon D600, Nikon 50mm f1.4, processed in Lightroom 3)

We have been rather busy over the past few weeks. After a great time in Liverpool with The Double Negative team we sent out some notworkrelated promotional literature to companies that we would love to work and collaborate with on projects. We are now working closely with two partners.

Firstly we have strengthened our friendship with The Print Space in London and after appearing on their blog and judging their Self Portrait competition, we are working on promotional material for notworkrelated as well as printing all our shop orders through them. We highly recommend their printing skills and great customer service.

Secondly we will be appearing at ‘Focus on Imaging’ 2013 at the Birmingham NEC with Canson Infinity on Monday 4th March from 10am. With 450 years of high quality paper heritage we will be showcasing our travel photography with Canson Infinity and talking to fellow photographers interesting in printing and paper stocks. If you are at the event feel free to come over and say ‘Hi’.

And… hot off the press we have two prints back from The Print Space printed on the lovely Canson Infinity Arches Aquarelle Rag (310gsm). ‘Yosemite National Park, California, USA’ and ‘Decorative Basket, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia’ both look amazing on this matt textured stock.

You can purchase limited edition prints from our shop. All printed on two stocks by Canson Infinity, either the above mentioned Canson Infinity Arches Aquarelle Rag or the Canson Infinity Baryta Photographique.

For your viewing pleasure we have photographed the prints and you can get a good idea as to the texture and quality the Aquarelle Rag has to offer.

On the 4th December (which was also Helen’s 33rd birthday!) we both ventured out into the North-West of England and more specifically into Liverpool. Helen was born and raised not too far away in Widnes and so we decided to have a few days ‘Oop’ North.

The reason we were in Liverpool was to meet up with Laura from The Double Negative  in conjunction with our online shop and Notworkrelated adventures! Laura invited us over to their new office over at Static on Roscoe Lane, it couldn’t have been more appropriate!

Static is home to an artists collective combining the talents of tile-makers, hair-dressers, web developers, sound and installation artists and new tenants; The Double Negative. In the past Static was more known for it’s live music but thanks to a license issue they only have one off gigs now but do host social media events throughout the year and seem to attract a lovely bunch of creatives.

The Double Negative are made up of Laura and Mike and along with 40 other contributors they write about all the good things going on in the North-West of England. Really they’re there to keep us informed about what is going on in the arts, music, film and design world. We heard them on 6Music a few months ago with the lovely Lauren Laverne and decided to approach them about our Notworkrelated projects. They said yes and invited us in for an interview!

We soon realised there is a lot going on in Helen’s old backyard of Liverpool and especially from a creative point of view. We were interested to hear about all the DIY artists and venues that are around the city, pop up gallery spaces, gig venues and nice little collectives. Spaces we’re sure we’ll be passing through when we are in the North-West setting ourselves up.

A few places we’d like to check out for our very own field trip sometime soon will be:

- The new Open Eye Gallery, recently reopened down on the Albert Dock in a building called Mann Island (well its newly opened to us but it has just celebrated it’s first birthday!). The Open Eye has always been a gallery to bookmark as it’s the only dedicated photography gallery in the North-West of England and has been long established within the creative industry.

- Camp and Furness – this place sounds exciting doesn’t it? Its an alternative event space home to pop-up shops, bar and eatery, a photographic studio and a boutique hotel where you can book to stay in a caravan! From art installations to camera and comedy vintage markets and street food. This is high on our list of priorities to visit when we are next in Liverpool!

- Baltic Creative (The Baltic Triangle) also located down at Liverpool’s Albert Dock, it’s a creative campus. Once a warehouse district handling the dock trade it is now a growing environment for creative and digital businesses. With places to eat, music to listen to and art to explore.

It was a real pleasure to meet up with The Double Negative and we felt really inspired afterwards. We also ate some very scrummy food at Leaf on Bold Street, we can definitely recommend this place, you may have to wait for a table but the atmosphere and food is very inviting, plus their selection of teas are equally enticing.

Here’s how our interview went…

They’ve managed to context our travel experiences and photography really well and have written some lovely words about our Shop too! In case you missed anything all through January (Not long to go now!) we’re offering 25% off everything until the end of the month, it would be lovely for you to visit and have a browse.